Page 21 - BrewDog Case Study

After eight months, in December 2008, BrewDog were

cleared of all breaches of the Code of Practice and were
permitted to continue marketing their brands without

making any changes to the packaging.

BrewDog accused Portman Group of essentially supporting

the interests of the large, established brewers against those
of the small independent ones commenting that

"Unfortunately, the Portman Group is a gloomy gaggle of

killjoy jobsworths, funded by navel-gazing international
drinks giants."

In response to their win BrewDog produced a new beer

called SpeedBall (the name for a combination of heroin and

cocaine), cheerfully labelling it a “class A strong ale” with “a
vicious cocktail of active ingredients” saying "...we thought

we would give them something worth banning us for...".

2009

“In 2009, an “outraged individual” wrote to the Portman
Group and complained about the Tokyo imperial stout

produced by BrewDog, which measured in at around

18.2%. The writer claimed that it was irresponsible to
promote such a strong beer in the UK, and after a few

weeks, Tokyo was banned. Satisfied, the man behind

the letter, James Watt, returned to his day job of

running the BrewDog company.” (11)

Watt accused the Portman Group of “acting like a thinly

veiled cartel. They have a vested interest in making sure

their member companies entrench their market position.”
(14) Whilst Dickie said, Tokyo Imperial stout was a unique